The Quantum Trilogy, Book 3: A Game of Sorts
by Jorus C'baoth
Summary: Book 3 in my James Bond fanfic series. I'll be publishing it alongside Quantum, since this is the first original story. The final part of the Quantum Trilogy. Book 2 will be getting more attention until it's finished, but this'll get chapters every so often.
1. The Master's Plan

_**1 / The Master's Plan**_

**NOW**

Guy Haines walked into his study at four o'clock in the morning and found that the dog wasn't barking at a simple leaf outside the window. "What the hell are you doing here?" he asked the man sitting at his own desk. "If they find you here, they'll trace you right back to me." He shut the door so that his wife didn't hear them talking

"I don't think you have to worry about that, Mr. Haines. Besides, your ties to Quantum are already well established and known to every government. Why did you think you weren't called to any meetings?"

Haines sat down on the sofa against the wall opposite the desk. "I've been found out? _When_?"

" When Bond spied on us at the Bregenz opera house. You, Karakov, Soref. You've _all_ been discovered."

"And what about you? MI6 already knew about you."

White sat back in his chair and cracked his knuckles. Haines couldn't help but notice that his hands were gloved. "But I've covered my tracks. I escaped Sienna—"

Haines cut him off, "Thanks to your man. What's his name again? Island? Imbris?"

Suddenly, a wire was drawn around his neck, cutting off his supply of oxygen. He could still breath, but it was enough to stop him from talking. A cool voice with a Kurdish accent whispered in his ear, "Iblis."

White smiled. "As I said, I escaped Sienna. I went undiscovered in Bregenz. Iblis dispatched Greene after his foul up. And we've taken care of other such... loose ends."

**THEN**

The Russian agent, Svetlana Kierikova, got out of her car at just the right moment. Iblis slid up to her and clamped a hand around her mouth. "Do not scream. You will not be injured if you remain silent." He released his hand from her mouth and instructed her to lead him to her apartment. Once they got there, he had a drink with her, then he killed her, slowly and painfully. She bled to death in as slow a manner as possible.

In the end, blood dripped from every possible place: nose, mouth, ears, eyes... and more private spots.

**NOW**

"Problems which you refused to deal with while you were in charge," White said, almost with a hint of glee. Haines couldn't help but scowl at the smile which seemed to widen almost every second. "Iblis, relieve some of the pressure on his throat."

The Kurd loosened the wire, but it wasn't taken away. "What do you want, White?"

" What do I want? It's not what I _want_, Mr. Haines, it's what I'm _taking_."

**THEN**

Iblis waited for the American in his home. Mrs. Allen Thompson and her children had been entertained for several hours while her CIA husband worked. Now, all three corpses laid in their beds, awaiting the man of the dead house.

"Nancy?" Thompson called as he walked in from the garage. He flipped on the lamp in their living room and was greeted by Iblis and Iblis alone. "Who the hell are you?"

"I am here to make certain you do not interfere in the affairs of those higher than you in the natural order."

"What are you talking about?"

Iblis raised the silenced handgun. "Mr. White sends his regards." He fired one bullet, hitting the man directly in his left temple. He had to be out of the country as soon as possible. His employer had one last target for him to deal with.

**NOW**

"And what are you taking?" Haines asked.

Iblis whispered to him, "What is deserved."

Haines narrowed his eyes. "Why make a play for power now, White?"

White laughed. "Now? I've been working toward this since I first joined the organization. You never questioned it, did you?" Another laugh. "All those targets, all the work I did? Everything worked out in the end, though we lost a few men in the process. And each time one of the committee members was killed, another one simply scooped up his assets and we carried on."

"My own sudden rise doesn't seem so sudden anymore, White."

"I'm glad you've decided to notice. Le Chiffre's financing operations, Greene's Tierra Project, my own set up on the Virgin Islands... it's all been leading to this one moment. I had Le Chiffre killed to cover up the large transactions that were sent to my accounts. Greene was eliminated because he gave us all up to Bond. And now, it's your turn to join them in the purgatory you've created for all members of Quantum."

**THEN**

Camille Montes set her keys down on her dresser and grabbed her gun as soon as she heard the door to her apartment close. Whoever he was, he'd been tailing her since she left the office. She hugged the wall beside the dresser and waited for him to enter the bedroom.

To her surprise, he walked in and sat down on the chair next to the door. "You can put your weapon away, it will do you no good," he said, the accent of a Kurd. "I am Iblis."

Camille's eyes widened. She recognized that name. MI6 had shared documents with her agency which had his name, but nothing more. "You don't look like I expected."

He tilted his head back. "And what were you expecting?"

"Someone a little more... Demonic."

A smile appeared on his face, one that sent chills up her spine. Indeed, the man in front of her could be considered attractive. He must have been at least six-foot-three, with a clean-shaven face, and close cropped hair. He almost looked like a Middle Eastern version of James Bond, except he didn't have the scar on his right cheek. But one thing was certain, the only thing she saw in his eyes was death. No emotions had ever held this man down.

"What do you want with me?" she asked.

"You are a threat, and must be silenced."

"On who's orders?"

"Mr. White, head of Quantum."

"Don't you mean Guy Haines?"

"No. Mr. Haines does not have much time left, and his tenure as commander is over, in any case." On the last word, he drew a weapon from a shoulder holster beneath his coat. Without sound or flash, he squeezed the trigger, and suddenly Camille's vision doubled. She looked down at her stomach and found the dart he'd fired. "The poison is slow acting, and there is no antidote. You will die, Miss Montes."

Camille tried to raise her gun, but it felt too heavy, and so she dropped it. Iblis didn't move, he simply sat there, the dart gun still aimed at her.

"What threat... could I possibly be?" she asked, her voice cracking.

"It is not my place to know such things. I simply know that you are to die, and so you shall." And with that, he stood up and left.

It was three hours before Camille lost consciousness. At first, she tried to reach her phone, but the room spun around her, making her stumble and fall. Once she gave up on that, she simply dropped to the floor and the only things she had to comfort her were her thoughts of James.

**NOW**

White and Haines sat across from one another. White in the desk chair, Haines on the sofa. Behind Haines stood Iblis, White's executioner.

" Now you know," White said, standing from his chair. "I just wanted you to know how much your fate was out of your hands. I've been planning this for a long time, Guy. Quantum holds the keys to the world, and now _I_ hold the keys to Quantum." White nodded to his assassin, who pulled the wire across Haines' neck.

"Wait!" Haines struggled to say. Iblis loosened the wire. "Please, don't kill my wife."

White sighed. "She's _already_ dead."

And with that, Iblis pulled the wire tighter across Haines' neck yet again. His death was slow, and more than a little blood stained the silk pajamas his wife had bought him last Christmas. White left the house first, and then Iblis followed once Haines' head was severed from his neck and rolling on the floor.

When both men were in the car, Iblis asked, "Shall I deal with Bond now, sir?"

White shook his head. "No, I have someone expendable on that job. Bond has done more than his share of damage to Quantum. I want to play with him a little before we kill him."


	2. Things That Kill in the Night

_**2 / Things That Kill in the Night**_

The irony was, it was the first time in a long time that James Bond had had a good night's sleep in his own flat. In the six months during the White investigation, he'd rarely slept at all; and then after, he'd been on a constant flow of operations that caused him to sleep where ever he could get the chance, including his own office, much to Mary Goodnight's annoyance. But that night, he was _finally_ sleeping in his own flat, in his own bed, and yet he was interrupted.

The assassin was good, Bond would give him that. He slipped in through a window that was barely open, and would have been able to keep quiet had it not been for the rain that man had been pelted with. Bond demanded linoleum, marble and wood floors in his flat, and the soft, barely audible squeaking from the assassin's leather boots was as good as a tell-all. The man stuck to the shadows, which were plenty thanks to Bond's drapes, and he wore dark clothes.

Bond waited in the bathroom, and then put the assassin in a head lock just as he passed by. He struggled, then backed Bond into the wall across from the bathroom. He elbowed the agent in the gut, knocking Bond into another wall, then drew a small pocket knife and took a half dozen swipes, all of which Bond just barely scrambled away from.

Now, in the kitchen, Bond rolled behind the island counter and pulled a flat pan from the cabinet there. Stepping out from behind the counter, he threw the pan at the assassin, who could barely see it in the dark. The man cried out in pain, dropping to the floor. Bond took the time to grab one of his spare weapons from the utensil drawer. He checked the magazine of the Browning Hi-Power and chambered a round, flicking off the safety.

"Get up," Bond said, aiming at the man. He flipped the light switch, and bathed the man in light he wasn't expecting. "I said _get up!_" Bond thumbed the hammer back, to punctuate his words. The man stood up, rubbing the bleeding wound on his head. "Who do you work for?"

The man said nothing. Bond walked over to him and pulled off the mask that concealed his face. He didn't recognize the assassin, but that didn't mean he'd never seen him before.

"I asked who you work for," Bond said again, in a slightly calmer voice than before.

In an American accent, the assassin said, "I work for Mr. White."

So there it was. Quantum. Bond assumed it was just a matter of time before the faceless organization came after him. After the Le Chiffre incident and Greene's Tierra Project, he'd cost the Euro-trash quite a bit of money that they were quickly losing the ability to spend. "What about Guy Haines? White reports to him."

"Not anymore."

Bond raised his gun and aimed at the man's face. "What's happened to Haines?"

"It doesn't matter. What matters is what comes next." And with those words, the assassin lifted up a concealed device, what looked like a detonator. Bond knew he didn't have the time to stop him, and instead dove behind his sofa. In that space of time, the man thumbed the button, and then his blood, not to mention pieces of the ceiling, was raining down on the room.

When Bond stood, he heard his phones ringing, louder than the ringing in his ears from the explosion. He walked over to the nearest handset and answered it. "Bond."

Tanner was on the other end. _"James, what's going on? The fire station's been sent to your flat."_

"I know. A Quantum hitman just exploded in my living room."

"_Damn. M's calling you in. You're not the only one Quantum's sent someone after in the past few days."_

"Guy Haines, as well?"

"_Yes. And... James," _ Tanner paused, as if looking for the words to say, _"we just received word from Felix Leiter in Bolivia. Camille Montes is dead."_

Bond felt his eyes widen. "I'll be there in twenty minutes."

111

People were crowding the hallways of the bleak building overlooking Regent's Park. Bond didn't bother with a suit, and instead simply walked in wearing his pajama bottoms, a gray shirt, a pair of shoes and his jacket. When he walked past Mary Goodnight's desk, she didn't even notice him, thanks to the dozens of dossiers piled on her desk and the phone calls she was busy transferring. Bond didn't even wait for the red light by M's door to change to green, he simply walked in.

"Good God, Bond, what's happened to you?" M asked. Tanner must not have had the time to explain Bond's situation to her.

"Camille Montes is dead?" he asked, ignoring her question. "How?"

"We're not exactly sure, but we think—"

Bond cut her off by slamming his hands down on her desk, shocking Tanner, who'd just walked in from the other door, and sending dozens of sheets of paper flying. "_How?!_"

Several guards rushed into the room, two of them pulling Bond away from the desk and the rest putting themselves between him and M. She waved those between them away and walked around the desk. "I'll kindly ask you to never do that again, Double Oh Seven. I know how much Ms. Montes meant to you, but her death is now excuse for insubordination." She pressed a button on her desk, activating the display screen on the glass wall to her right. Camille's lifeless body, completely markless, laid on the floor of the murdered agent's bedroom. "From what we've been able to determine, it was a slow acting poison, introduced into her system by way of a dart."

Bond shook the two guards off of him and regained his composure. He felt his blood cooling, slightly. "Mr. White had her killed?"

"That seems to be the case, yes. These past few days, White's been using his men to eliminate every threat to Quantum, and just this morning he personally killed Guy Haines."

"Every threat?"

"Every _real_ threat, in White's eyes. So far, only a few have managed to come out alive. Your friend Leiter, another American named Wade, a Chinese agent named Yu and a Belgian named Krieg."

"And me."

"Is that what happened to you?"

Tanner finally piped in, "I was just about to tell you that, ma'am."

M sighed, then continued: "Three of our Double Ohs have been killed, as well. At the moment, only you, Double Oh Six and Double Oh Nine are available to us. The rest are on deep cover assignments, and hopefully safe."

"I want White," Bond said, a firmness in his voice.

"I'm not sending you out on a revenge kill, Bond."

"Then I'll go after him on my own. You can consider me a rogue agent if you have to, but White's made his last mistake, and he needs to pay for it."

"The only thing I'm doing with you sending you on assignment. We're co-operating with MI5 on this assignment, and you and Alec Trevelyan are going to track Quantum through the Haines connection."

"You want us to interogate a dead man?"

"No. I want you to follow his data trail. MI5 has been combing over Haines' house for hours now, looking for anything he might have hidden. Anyone as high up in Quantum's inner circle as we believe Haines to have been would always have insurrance."

Bond didn't want to be placed on the assignment, but M clearly wanted him where someone could watch him. She didn't want him going off and killing White before he gave them everything he could. Bond, on the other hand, could care less what information White had, he just wanted him dead. Camille would have wanted the same thing. For now, he'd play it M's way, but the first chance he had, White was dead. For Camille.

111

Alec Trevelyan was a man of Bond's size, with closely cropped hair and a smile one could instantly like. Bond had never met his fellow agent before, but his reputation in the Royal Navy was well-known. In a few years, the man might have a chapter devoted to him in Naval history, but for now, he was just a simple Double Oh who was, at that very moment, eating an apple in Guy Haines' bedroom, right beside the markers that designated where Haines' wife had died.

Bond was now properly dressed in his usual suit, his P99 tucked away in his shoulder holster. He poked through Haines' dresser, his desks, his bookshelves. Whatever M assumed was here clearly wasn't.

Trevelyan spoke Bond's thoughts aloud, "We're clearly wasting our time here, wouldn't you say, Double Oh Seven?"

"Of course we are. Haines wouldn't keep these records here, he'd have given them to someone else, or stored them elsewhere."

"You were a good friend of Bill's in the service, weren't you?"

Bond shot Trevelyan a glare. "What does that have to do with this?"

"He told me you were a clever fellow. That at the right moment, you'd slip off and find a way to stick your P99 to White's temple and squeeze."

Bond coughed out a brief laugh. "At least you know why you're here."

"Well, James, when that time comes, you'll have probably disarmed me and knocked me unconscious, preventing me from stopping you, correct?"

"Probably."

"Definately. And, when _just_ the right moment comes, you won't find me stopping you."

Bond looked over at Trevelyan. "Why?"

"M told you, right? Double Oh Two, Double Oh Four and Double Oh Five, all dead. We're wasting our time here looking for a paper trail when we should be out there hunting down White and getting him out of our hair permanently. White's killed dozens of agents, and deserves to be punished for that."

Bond was surprised. He knew that M, in her heart, agreed with him, but to hear the same from a fellow agent? He was beginning to accept the assignment a little. He pulled a slip of paper from his pocket and handed it to Trevelyan. "We need to find him."

"Valentin Zukovsky?"

"I found it in Haines' financial records. He'd just paid Zukovsky a quarter of a million euros last night, but it doesn't say what for."

Trevelyan smiled. "Looks like we're going to Russia." He pulled his phone from his pocket. "Tanner? Tell her we've found a lead, and Bond and I are going to follow it up. We need two tickets to..." He turned back to Bond. "Where?"

"St. Petersburg."

"St. Petersburg, right away." He stowed away his phone. "Whaddya say, James? Shall we take a trip?"

"I think we should, Alec."


End file.
